This Time Around
by Darkchilde
Summary: Seven years in the future, the Cliffhangers reunite at Horizon. And boy, do some of them have so news!
1. Default Chapter Title

Disclaimer: Not mine. Fox Family's. This is a possible future for our beloved characters, about seven years in the future. (well, a possible future that I would like to see...*grin*). I warn thee now...there WILL be S&S in here, just not QUITE as much as J/A and D/E. The only reason for this is that their are SO MANY WONDERFUL WONDERFUL WONDERFUL S&S future fics out there, I don't think I could do justice to them. (If you wanna read good S&S future, try Sorrow and New Beginnings and Swear It Again, two EXCELLENT S/S future fics. I'm sure there are others, but those are the one's that I can think of right now. Oh, and megan's new one...When I'm All Alone, I think is the title. Okay, enough plugs, on with the story!) This first part is D/E. The next is J/A and the part after THAT will be S/S.   
  
  
This Time Around  
  
  
The morning sunlight was streaming through the window, illuminating the sleeping couple inside. A young man, perhaps in his early to mid twenties, was lying on his back, the sheets pulled up to his waist. His chest was bare, and one of his arms was thrown up above his head, resting on the pillow, pressed up against the headboard. His other arm was wrapped around the young woman, roughly the same age as the man, curled up against his body. She was lying on his bare chest, her cheek pressed against his heart, the steady thump thump having put her to sleep last night. The sheets were pulled up to her bare shoulders.   
  
The newly risen sunlight danced through the window and onto the face of the young man. He blinked sleepily, yawning slightly and stretching his free arm out above his head. The girl continued to sleep, holding tightly to the wiry chest of her sleeping companion.   
  
Yawning again, the young man rubbed at his eyes, and attempted to sit up. The weight on his chest held him down, and he chuckled. She was a heavy sleeper, and a snuggler to boot---one would think that he would remember that. He had been waking up beside her for nearly five years now.   
  
Grinning slightly, the young man named Ezra Friekdkin ran his fingers through his curly brown hair, and snuggled back down into the covers, trying to call sleep up to take him back to dreamworld with his girlfriend.   
  
Unfournately, Ezra was by nature an early riser, and going back to sleep was not about to happen. However, he knew that he couldn't get out of bed without waking up his lady, and she'd been up late last night studying for one of her exams.   
  
Movement caught his attention, and he looked down...and was lost in a pair of sleepy deep brown eyes. He smiled and craned his neck down to kiss her on the forehead.   
  
"Morning." He murmured to her, his voice husky and thick with sleep.  
  
"Mornin'." Daisy Lipenowski breathed back, snuggling back into her lover's embrace. Ezra was more then willing to welcome her back to his arms, holding her tightly against his chest and dropping a kiss on the top of her hair.   
  
"Sleep alright?" He asked, his fingers slidding through her dark tresses. They ran into tangle,and he began to play with the twisted hair, trying to pull it out with out ripping half Daisy's hair out of her head.   
  
"No. Got all my studying done though. And half that damn paper written. Got nothing to do to day. No classes, or nothin'." She murmured into his chest, her exahustion evident in her voice.   
  
"That's good." Ezra agreed, another yawn breaking in by the time he was half way through his two word sentence.  
  
"How about you?" Daisy asked, her voice starting to wake up a little bit.   
  
"Free today too." He responded, rubbing at his face. He could feel her smile into his chest.  
  
"Good. Let's stay in bed all day." She suggested, already snuggling deeper into his arms.   
  
"Sounds like a plan. But tell me, Ms. Lipenowski, what are we going to DO in bed all day?" Ezra asked her, deadpan. The aforementioned Ms. Lipenowski sat up on her elbows, and grinned at him, her chocolate colored eyes darkening in an expression Ezra knew well. She leaned forward, until her lips hovered directly above his.  
  
"I'm sure we'll think of something." She assured him in a throaty whisper, before catching his reply with a kiss. And then for a long time afterward, all they knew was each other, and the feelings they created in one another.  
  
*******  
  
The sun was nearly directly overhead when Daisy and Ezra managed to pull themselves out of their antique double bed. The bed had been a gift from Ezra's foster sister, Lexie Niles, when Ezra had told her that he and Daisy were moving in together. He had been relectant to take it at first; it had been in Lexie's family for nearly six generations. But his sister was admiment, and had even laughingly told him that HE would be needing it more then SHE would.  
  
Still clad in their bathrobes and very little else, the two lovers wondered into their kitchen to see if either one of them had managed to get the the market during one of their infrequent breaks from school. Discovering half a gallon of month old milk and something that might have once been take-out, the duo remembered that no, neither of them had managed to get to the store.   
  
In stead, Ezra put a pot of water on to boil, while Daisy rummaged through the cabinets, looking for the coffee and or tea bags. Discovering one of each, she turned triumphant to her boyfriend, who was leaning back against the counter, looking at her with his deep blue eyes.  
  
"What?" Daisy demanded, feeling the slightest bit vulernable under his close watch. Even after all these years, she still wasn't completely comfortable reveiling herself to the people she loved the most. Ezra flashed his beautiful smile at her and shook his head.  
  
"Nothing. Just admiring the view."   
  
"Admiring the veiw huh? How romantic. And here, I thought you were a Shakespear fan." Daisy teased slightly, brushing her hair back behind her ears.   
  
"Oooh, cheap shot!" Ezra laughed, moving forward to pull her into a tight embrace and steal a kiss or two. Unfournately, he stole one to many kisses, because the kettle screamed, and then boiled over.   
  
"Ooops." He muttered, moving away from Daisy and sweeping the metal kettle of water off the burner and setting it on one of the assorted potholders scattered throughout the small kitchen.   
  
"I think we can rule out Julia Child and Martha Stewart as your biological mothers." Daisy noted, crossing her arms over her chest and grinning at him.  
  
"Hey, is it my fault I get distracted by beautiful women standing in my kitchen all seductive like?" He returned, smirking and settling down in one of the second hand chairs that they had bought in a thrift shop for five bucks a peice.   
  
"Yeah, like I'm REAL seductive in my STUNNING sleeping attire." Daisy muttered drily, coming around the table to settle down on Ezra's lap.   
  
"You're beautiful." He told her sincerly, stroking a lock of her hair back out of her face with gentle fingers. She smiled at him, pressing a light kiss to his temple.   
  
"So are you." She told him lightly, tracing his jawline with her finger.   
  
"Just think, what would the rest of the Cliffhangers be saying if they could see you know." Ezra teased, shifting her around a little on his lap. "The cynical, cold, ice princess--"  
  
"Ice princess? Who called me an ice princess?" Daisy cut him off, surprised.  
  
"Who DIDN'T?" He continued to tease, the grin on his face reassuring her that HE, at least, had never thought of her as an 'ice princess'.  
  
"Oh, that's just SO comforting to know." She muttered, twisting her lips to the side in the closest thing she ever let herself get to a pout.   
  
"Don't worry about it, baby. I'll set them straight at the reunion." Ezra promised, snikkering. Daisy slapped his arm lightly, throwing her arms around his neck.   
  
"What reunion?" Daisy wanted to know, his words finally regestering in her mind. He blinked, and then moved her off of his lap, standing up.  
  
"Did I not tell you?" Ezra asked, moving out of the kitchen and into the living room. He came back a few seconds later, holding a cream colored letter in his hands. "This came yesterday. Seems the Cliffhangrs are having a reunion back at Horizon."   
  
"Really?" Daisy asked, taking the lettter from him and looking at it in interst. When her eyes reached the signature, her mouth fell open slightly. "Juliette Ciceros?"   
  
"That's what I said." Ezra agreed, pouring the cooling water into a pair of coffee mugs. He set one down in front of Daisy, and then took a seat on the other side of the table, facing her.  
  
"So, you wanna go?" Daisy asked him, looking up from the neat handwritting. Ezra lifted his eyebrows, and looked back at her.  
  
"Do you?" He wanted to know, dropping the coffee bag into his water. His lover mulled it over, chewing on the bottom of her lip.   
  
"Yeah. It'd be good to see Shelby and Peter and Sophie and everybody else again." Daisy decided, running her fingers through her sleep tosuled hair.  
  
"That's what I thought too." Ezra agreed, smiling at her and proping his chin up on his arm. He yawned wide, and rubbed at his eyes. "We've gotta go to the store today." He changed the subject abruptly, something Daisy had learned to live with. He did it quite about, espeically when he was sleepy.  
  
"Umm. Good plan." Daisy agreed, looking around their bare kitchen. "Food is usally a good thing."  
  
Whatever Ezra was going to say was cut off by the ringing of the telephone. Exchanging a look with Daisy, he rose to answer it, snatching it up on the second ring.  
  
"Hello?" He asked, wondering who would be calling him at---he peered at the clock--noon on a Friday.  
  
"Yo!" A familiar female voice called from the other end.   
  
"Lexie!" Ezra laughed, glad to hear from his best friend and foster sister.   
  
"Hey Lex!" Daisy called, standing up and heading for the bathroom to take a shower. Ezra waved to her, before hopping up on the counter, as he continued to chat with Lexie.   
  
Daisy laughed, hearing her lover's indignat snort over something that the hyper African-American girl told him as she stepped into the tiny bathroom off of her and Ezra's bedroom. She had just stepped out of her nightgown when something occured to her.   
  
She wasn't quite sure WHY this had occured to her when it did--perhaps it was because she was in the bathroom, or perhaps her mind just liked to play tricks on her. But whatever the reason, she realized something with a start. Holding back the curse that hovered on her tongue, Daisy shot out of the bathroom, unmindful of the fact that she was dressed only in one of Ezra's old tee shirts.   
  
Thankfully, Ezra was still occupied on the phone with Lexie, so he didn't see her dart to her pile of books resting on her desk. She scooped up the black dayplanner that someone had given to her for last Christmas, and began to frantically scan the pages.  
  
She found the date she was looking for in a matter of minutes. It was nearly two and a half months ago. The book clattered out of Daisy's fingers as the implications sank into hre brain.  
  
"No way." 


	2. Default Chapter Title

Disclaimer: Not mine, all Fox Family. Except for Bella and the baby--those are mine. Next part is S/S, and the part after THAT is Kate, David, Peter and Sophie. And THEN I'll actually get to the ACTUAL STORY, I promise. :)  
  
  
This Time Around  
Chapter 2  
  
  
Juliette Waybourne Ciceros woke up with a smile on her face, just like she had every morning since she was nineteen and had married the man sleeping beside her. Turning her head, she watched him sleep in the new morning light, and her smile grew bigger. The light made him look younger and more handsome then he already was.   
  
His deep dark eyes opened, and Auggusto "Auggie" Ciceros met his beautiful wife's smile with one of his own. He reached out to stroke her cheek and then to press a light kiss against her mouth.   
  
"Hey twig." Auggie grinned at her, taking in her round cheeks and sparkling eyes.   
  
"Not so much anymore." Juliette laughed, throwing the comforter off to reveal her heavily pregnant stomach.   
  
"But still as beautiful as ever. Maybe even more so." Auggie assured her, laying his hand flat on her stomach, feeling their daughter kicking against Jules' stomach.   
  
"I love you." Juliette smiled, laying her hand over her husband's. The sunlight made the matching golden bands on their fingers sparkle.   
  
"Not as much as I love you." Auggie whispered to her, touching his forehead to her cheek and inhaling the scent of her hair.   
  
The perfect moment was broken by a little giggle and the pitty pat of feet. Turning to the doorway of their rather small bedroom, the Ciceros smiled and waved to their first born, Isabella. The dark eyed child giggled, and ran into the room, wiggling up in between her parents.  
  
"Good mornin', Mami, Papi." Bella giggled, her four year old face nearly angelic.   
  
"Hi baby." Auggie laughed, pulling her against him and hugging the stuffing out of her. Bella just laguhed harder, pulling corresponding laughter out of her mother.   
  
"Come on you two, we gotta get going." Juliette reminded her family, swinging her feet out of bed and hoisting herself up as carefully as she could.  
  
"Watch it, bonita, you need some help?" Auggie asked, concerned, as he too got out of their bed, Bella still held firmly against his chest. Jules rubbed her back, but shook her head, her long hair flying out around her.  
  
"No, I'm fine. Come on sweetie, let's let Daddy get ready for work, and make some breakfast." Juliette reached out her hands to her young daughter, who squirmed away from her father to run to her mother.   
  
"Okay, Mami."   
  
"I'll be right out ta help, baby." Auggie promised, stopping on his way to the shower to kiss her softly.  
  
"Thanks."  
  
"Mami, come on!" Isabella's impaitent little voice called. Both Juliette and Auggie laughed, sharing another short kiss before they set off toward their sepearte duties.   
  
By the time Auggie was showered and dressed, Juliette and Bella were nearly finished making breakfast. He wondered into their tiny kicthen and smiled at his wife and daughter as they stirred batter and set the table respectively.  
  
"So what's on the agenda today?" Auggie asked comming up and hugging Juliette from behind. His arms wouldn't quite fit around her waist, much to her disgust and his amusement.   
  
"Well, we're going to go play at the park for a little while this morning, then go visit grandma for a little bit, and then I've got work. You'll pick her up after school's out, right?" Jules listed for her husband.  
  
"Yeah--I gotta an art club meeting but I should be there by four thirty." Auggie assured her, patting her pregnant belly before turning to his daughter and swooping her up into a tight hug. Bella laughed and hugged her father's neck hard and planted a light kiss on his cheek. The family continued making breakfast together, and soon enough, they were sitting around the table, their breakfast laid out before them.  
  
"Who would have thought?" Juliette suddenly asked, her dark blue eyes dancing.   
  
"Who would have thought what, Jules?" Auggie asked her, curious.   
  
"That you, Mr. Ciceros, would be an ART teacher, and I would work in a VIDEO store." Juliette giggled, her eyes sparkling.  
  
"Certainly not you're mother." Auggie noted. He immidately regreted his remakr when he saw the stricken look on his beloved wife's face. "Hey...Jules...I didn't mean..."  
  
"Hush." Juliette waved her hand, her smile returning. "I don't give a DAMN about that woman---who cares if she won't 'claim' me anymore, because I followed my heart and didn't marry for money, like SHE did? I'm happy. She's not. Who's the stupid one?"   
  
"That's great Juliette." Auggie smiled proudly at her, leaning over the table to kiss her.  
  
"I know. Peter will be so proud, when I tell him about it at the reuinon!" She grinned.   
  
"Yeah, that's comin' up pretty soon isn't it?" Auggie remember.  
  
"What's a reunion?" The little girl piped up, her dark eyes wondering.  
  
"It's a party, where you go and see all you're old friends. You'll get to meet all of Mami and Papi's old friends." Juliette explained. Auggie's eyes landed on the clock and he spat something out in Spainish.  
  
"I'm gonna be late. I'll see you both when I get home." He told them in a rush, kissing each in turn and running out the door.  
  
"Papi's always running late, isn't he, Mami?" Bella asked, giggling just a little bit.  
  
"We keep you're papi distracted." Her mother agreed, her eyes laughing. "Go pick out what you wanna wear today. I'll be right there."   
  
"Kay." Bella called, standing up and running out of the room. As soon as her little girl was out of her sight, Julitte felt tears welling up in her eyes.  
  
"Damn you anyway, Mom. Give up the half-breed bastard-girl, Juliette. I won't have MY daughter rising a half-breed. Well, whose happier NOW Mommy?" Juliette spat out angrily, her mind replaying the discussion that lead to her and her mother's current--and PERMENANT--estrangement. "I hate you, MOM."  
  
The ringing of the telephone shook her out of her thoughts. Standing up, she let all the hate and resentment drain out of her, as she picked up her phone, and chirpped "Hello, Ciceros resident."  
  
"Juliette?" A vaugely familair female voice asked. Juliette srunched her eyebrows together, trying to place the voice. Then it clicked.  
  
"Shelby Merrick?" Jules squeaked.   
  
"That would be Shelby Merrick-Barringer now, Princess." 


	3. Default Chapter Title

Disclaimer: Not mine, all FFC's. The babies and children are mine though, so don't steal them!   
  
This Time Around   
Chapter 3  
  
  
Shelby Barringer pulled the phone away from her ear wincing at her old firend's excited squealing coming from the other side. She let a small smile pull at her lips and she couldn't help but laugh.   
  
She was standing in the middle of her bedroom in the modest home that she shared with her husband of exactly six months, Scott Barringer. A cream colored envelop rested on the dark red comforter of the bed, that Scott was still lying in.   
  
He was awake however, and sitting up on one elbow, watching her with his deep blue eyes. She smiled at him, and pushed back a lock of her blonde hair, sitting down beside him, her fingers unconsicsly reaching out to take his hand.   
  
By now, Juliette's screaming had calmed down, and she was speaking normally again.   
  
"Oy my God, when did you guys get married? That's so wonderful! How long? Was it a big wedding or a small one? How come we weren't invited?" Jules's last comment was tinged with just a hint of hurt. Shelby laughed again, and made haste to reassure her favorite "Queenie".   
  
"Just a couple months ago." Shelby told her.  
  
"Exactly six." Scott spoke up for the first time, sitting up all the way and pulling his wife into a bear hug. She laughed softly, and leaned against him, inhaling the scent of his aftershave.   
  
"Was that Scott? Can I talk to him?" Juliette asked happily, her momentary annoyance at not having been invited to the wedding forgotten.   
  
"Sure. Here." Shelby said to Scott, handing him the phone. "She wants to talk to you." Nodding, Scott took the phone, and leaned against the headboard, pulling his wife against him.   
  
"Hey, Jules. Yeah, six months ago. Yeah, I think so too. I'm sorry about that. No, it was as small as possible--we eloped. Why? I don't know--just didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of a big wedding. Yeah, we wish you all had been there too, but it was still great. Yeah, we're coming to the reunion. How about you? Oh, you and Auggie and Isabella? Whose Isabella?" At this point, Scott nearly dropped the phone and his eyes got big. "You and Auggie already have a kid? And another one on the way? Didn't wait around did you?"   
  
"What?" Shelby asked, interupting the one sided conversation that she was listening too. "Auggie and Jules have a kid? I knew they were married, but not about any kid!"   
  
"Yeah." Scott told her, putting his hand up over the mouth peice. "Isabella. She's four, and the 'most beautiful thing I've ever seen'." Scott playfully mocked his old girlfriend. Shelby grinned, her eyes dancing.   
  
"That's great." She agreed, cuddling closer to him. "Hey, does she know if Daisy is gonna be there? I haven't talked to her in awhile."   
  
"Hey, Jules? Do you know if Dais is gonna be there?" Scott dutifully relayed her message, stroking her back with his other hand.   
  
"I don't know. I couldn't find her address anywhere, and Peter and Sophie only had her dorm room, and she moved out of THERE like five years ago or something. I wonder where Daisy is?" Juliette wondered out loud.  
  
@}--}--  
  
Daisy Lipenowski was currently experincing the most nerve racking ten minutes of her life. A small pink and blue box sat in front of her, and slender stick was wrapped up under a towel a few feet away. She studied the writing on the back of the box religously, and took a deep breath.   
  
Thankfully, Ezra wasn't home right now, or he might be wondering what she was doing. Hell, she was wondering what she was doing. No WAY could she be--that. They had taken EVERY precaution in the book, so there was just no...  
  
The ding of the timer interrupted her thoughts. Swallowing hard, Daisy snatched the towel of the little stick, and closed her eyes. Reaching out blindly, she gropped around until she found it, and scooped it up into her hand. Taking a deep calming breath, and telling herself that their was no WAY this could be postive, she opened her eyes.  
  
It was postive.   
  
If this thing was right--she was...  
  
Daisy started to hypervenialate.   



End file.
